The Pattern of Monsanto Verdicts

• ⚖️ Juries have consistently awarded large sums to plaintiffs injured by Monsanto's glyphosate, such as Dwayne Johnson, who received $280 million in 2018 for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
• 📉 However, these substantial jury awards, particularly the punitive damages, are frequently reduced by trial judges and appellate courts.
• 📉 For example, Dwayne Johnson's award was reduced to $78.5 million and later to $20.5 million after appellate decisions.

The Role of the 14th Amendment

• 🏛️ The primary legal justification for reducing jury verdicts is the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
• 🧐 This amendment, originally intended to protect former slaves, is being controversially applied to corporations.
• 🏢 The argument is that corporations, as legal "persons," are being granted protections not intended for them, leading to a misapplication of the law.

Issues with Punitive Damages and Corporate Personhood

• 🎯 Punitive damages are designed to punish egregious behavior and deter future misconduct, not merely to compensate the victim.
• 💰 A key problem identified is that punitive damages are often scaled to the offense rather than the capacity of the entity being punished, making them a mere cost of doing business for large corporations.
• 📈 Appellate courts often deem punitive damages excessive if they exceed a certain ratio (e.g., 9:1) to compensatory damages, leading to significant reductions.
• 🚫 This reduction effectively immunizes corporations from the full impact of their harmful actions, allowing them to continue practices like selling glyphosate.

Proposed Solutions and Concerns

• 💡 A proposed solution is to rethink the application of the 14th Amendment to corporations and to scale punitive damages to the size and culpability of the offending entity.
• 🗣️ There is a concern that some punitive damages, intended for punishment, might be better allocated to public funds or other harmed individuals rather than solely to the plaintiff, though this idea is met with skepticism.
• ⚠️ The core argument is that punitive damages must hurt significantly to force corporations to alter their behavior and stop creating new victims, rather than simply budgeting for lawsuits.